Changes in neural activation among cannabis users in response to infant cry during the pregnancy

• In Event: Perinatal Substance Use affects the Neural Basis of Mother-Infant Attachment

Abstract

Research has shown the importance of a neural network transformation in response to infant cry early on in pregnancy to prepare parents biologically to learn to respond to their infant (Witteman et al., 2019). With this neural network transformation early in pregnancy in response to infant cry, it is imperative to address the gap in the literature and understand the potential implications cannabis use, the most commonly used substance during pregnancy, has on this network (Colorado Department of Public Health, 2018). Among the brain regions, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has shown to have dampened signaling in substance users, in addition to playing a critical role in activation during the infant cry task (Cousijn et al., 2012). However, previous studies tend to group women who are using different types of substances together, and little is known about the specific role of cannabis use on maternal brain responses to infant cues early in pregnancy. Thus, we hypothesized that mothers who only used cannabis (CA) during their first trimester will have less activation in the PFC compared to healthy controls (HC) in their first trimester.

Pregnant women performed the infant cry fNIRS (function Near-Infrared Spectroscopy) task during a home visit (HC= 22; CA=20). fNIRS data was measured by NIRSSCOUT (NIRx Medical Technologies, Berlin, Germany) using an 8x8 PFC montage. Cannabis use was defined by a positive urine drug screen test, or self-report using a Timeline Followback/Self-Report Drug Use Scale (Robinson et al., 2014). Groups were matched on age, race and ethnicity, education, and parity. The only significant difference between groups was the slightly higher depression symptom (EPDS) score in CA group (HC= 3.959  3.439; CA= 6.3500 3.773; t = -2.148 (40), p = .038). The infant cry fNIRS task was event related design listening to an infant cry and matched white noise. Preprocessing and whole brain data analysis was conducted through Matlab 2019b (The MathWorks, Inc., Natik Massachusetts, USA) and NIRS Toolbox (Huppert & Barker, 2015).

Four significant channels showed differences in activation (41, 42, 47, and 49). Among three channels showed the CA group had significantly less activation during the infant cry stimuli (see Figure 1) corresponding to the frontopolar area, the anterior portion of the PFC, (BA10) (Channel 42: t=4.592, q=.005, df=76, power=.980; Channel 41: t=3.253, q=.0375, df=76, power=.770; Channel 47: t=3.210, q=.038, df=76, power=.756) and the orbitofrontal region (BA11) (Channel 49: t=-3.236, q= .0375, df=76, power=.764). Our findings for deoxygenated (HbR) showed that HC had significantly more activation for HbR than CA in meaning that in response to infant cry CA had less deactivation in this region.

The frontopolar area and the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain are associated postpartum with maternal responses to infant stimuli for processing the emotional valence and perspective taking (Parsons et al., 2013; Musser et al., 2012). This adaptive mechanism of preferentially attending to infant cry is necessary for preparedness in parenting and this disruption from cannabis use could potentially lead to differences in parenting behavior and attachment later on.

Authors

• Shannon Powers, University of Denver
  Presenting Author

• Xu Han, University of Colorado-Boulder
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jacqueline Martinez, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tom Yeh, University of Colorado-Boulder
  Non-Presenting Author

• Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author